“Well?” Yibo demands. Past the severe frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, a flicker of the old him slips through, the persistent boy who shoved his way into Xiao Zhan’s space without a second thought and made a home for himself there. “Are you coming or not?”

Xiao Zhan’s heart twists. He forcibly settles it back in his chest. He’s only told Yibo no once in his entire life, and it was already the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. “Okay,” Xiao Zhan murmurs, quiet but decisive, and thumbs his phone off. “Let’s go.”

Even after four years apart, Wang Yibo still comes when an overworked and emotionally exhausted Xiao Zhan needs him, taking him on a road trip that changes everything. This fic took me on an amazing journey!

The client is tall and slim, the padded leather motorcycle jacket he wears adding artificial bulk to his upper body which angles sharply in to slender legs braced wide on either side of the bike. His face is fine-boned and delicate and –

Very, very familiar.

It’s a face that Xiao Zhan has seen daily for the last several months, although never in real life.

No, he’s used to seeing it through his kitchen window, twelve feet tall on the billboard that graces the side of the building down the block from his apartment.

He raises his head up at the drinks menu and that’s when the guy behind the counter turns around and greets them both with a smile.

Oh.

Yibo is aware that he’s staring, but he just. Can’t stop. The guy is tall–taller than Yibo–with long hair tied loosely into a bun. Soft bangs cover his forehead, with longer tendrils framing the most beautiful face Yibo has ever seen on a human person. And Yibo has met a lot of beautiful human people.

His heart beats too fast in his chest and then, with zero forethought, he’s turning to Yibo, leaning in, and blurting out, “I had a threesome with them. With Zhang Ruoyun and Tang Yixin.”

Fuck. Fuck.

Really, Xiao Zhan? At the Weibo awards, of all places? Where other people can see them? It was just that something about their close proximity, and the fact that Yibo looks so ridiculously sweet in those glasses, and seeing his friends flash across the screen, made the words bubble up his chest and escape through his stupid, stupid mouth.

It’d been an exhausting summer, but Wang Yibo couldn’t remember another where he’d laughed quite so much or talked quite so freely or teased quite so easily. They’d riled each other up like they were born to do it, and brought each other back again just as effortlessly – and afterwards, they’d said goodbye, and Yibo’s world had felt muted.

He had thought things were totally under control by the time the drama finally started airing and the press interviews began, but he quickly realized he’d played himself. One shy smile from Yibo and everything had come rushing back.

Only now—things are a little different. Yibo is… looking at him. A lot. And he’s not trying to hide it.